Flipkart appoints Stefaan van Hooydonk as Vice President Learning

Flipkart, India’s largest ecommerce firm, has appointed the former dean of Philips Lighting University, Stefaan van Hooydonk, as its vice-president of learning.Krithika Krishnamurthy | ET Bureau | September 02, 2015, 08:40 IST

Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce firm, has appointed the former dean of Philips Lighting University, Stefaan van Hooydonk, as its vice-president of learning. He will report to chief people officer Mekin Maheshwari.

Van Hooydonk will help employees at Flipkart evolve in the hyper-growth industry, Maheshwari said. He will also ensure that the number of external hires is reduced by half.

“We want the talent for the senior levels to come from within the organisation,” said Maheshwari. As head of learning, van Hooydonk will also set up a corporate university, bringing in newer formats of learning through mobile and gamification methods.

Van Hooydonk is credited with setting up and successfully running global learning departments and corporate universities for Nokia, Agfa Healthcare and, most recently, for Philips, where he set up nine corporate universities. He had also set up the executive education arm of China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

Van Hooydonk started his career in investment consulting after securing an MBA from Rutgers University in New Jersey and masters in Chinese and economics. He has worked and lived in France, Hong Kong, China, Finland and Belgium. He recently relocated to Bengaluru.

Van Hooydonk brings with him experience in employee and customer learning, digital learning and knowledge management.

Flipkart has also hired Sah Gaurav Krishna, a P&G veteran from Singapore, as senior director of the consumer electronics category. Van Hooydonk and Krishna’s hiring at Flipkart follow high-profile appointments such as that of Peeyush Ranjan (now head of engineering) and Punit Soni (head of products), both of whom hail from Google.

The e-commerce firm had also appointed Yahoo’s Eric Lange as its vice-president of product management–consumer service experiences in July.